Yeah, this is jus like a product Microsoft has for Xp. Lets you have four desktops, tho it's not as polished as the on in mac, but it still had it's function, but for my need, I would never use but two desktops.

i routinely have safari, mail, itunes, iphoto, and a game open. not sure if i am just nuts or like doing too many things at once. having a tool to lessen the desktop clutter will look great and end my miniminzing/maximizing or keeping thing less than fullscreen.

Yeah, this is jus like a product Microsoft has for Xp. Lets you have four desktops, tho it's not as polished as the on in mac, but it still had it's function, but for my need, I would never use but two desktops.

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*nix has had this capability for as long as i can remember. I do use VirtualDesktop and it works pretty darn great. I do think that it would be really sexy to be able to see all the desktops in an Expose type setting and move windows between desktops.

Exactly. I believe chose a specific window manager for X11 on a Solaris box in 1993 strictly for this reason.. though the wvm's name escapes me. All the X stole from Y is annoying, particularly in this vein, as virtual desktops are nothing new and neither NeoGiant can claim it as their own.

fvwm? Man it's been so long.

Yep, fvwm. ****, I still have a .fvwmrc file in my ancient UNIX account from college.

I dont know if its the same.
Im currently using Desktop Manager.
Steve talked about having an app in one space and pressing that icon in the dock will send you to that space. He also talked in terms of bundle usefull apps together in one space.
What if you want to have your browser in 3 spaces, and perhaps your fav editor in 2 spaces?
Anyone seen anything about how this works?
If this wont work flawless, ill continue using DM.

Virtue Desktops is a hack to force virtual desktops upon OS X. Spaces is n elegant and integrated solution for virtual desktops. Leopard will most likely be the first *consumer-orientated* OS to include virtual desktops.

Anyways, I have Virtue. It's incomplete, it's buggy, it does weird things to my desktop pictures, it won't let me constrain an app to a specific desktop (granted the option is there, it just doesn't work as far as I know) .. etc etc.

VirtueDesktops is VERY buggy for me. Sometimes the menubar menu commands don't work, sometimes the inspector windows do appear, but they're always blank - so I can't modify the desktops (names, how many, etc). And if I try to do anything beyond changing the screen switching effects, it freezes up.

And what sucks is that it doesn't appear in the Force Quit menu. So I had to log out and log back in to get rid of it.

Anyways, I have Virtue. It's incomplete, it's buggy, it does weird things to my desktop pictures, it won't let me constrain an app to a specific desktop (granted the option is there, it just doesn't work as far as I know) .. etc etc.

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I agree the VirtueDesktops is not as elegant as I'm sure Apple's implemention will be. I've been using the latest version of VirtueDesktops for a while now and it's been really stable. It does have the ability to constrain an app to a specific desktop (i absolutely LOVE that).

VirtueDesktops is VERY buggy for me. Sometimes the menubar menu commands don't work, sometimes the inspector windows do appear, but they're always blank - so I can't modify the desktops (names, how many, etc). And if I try to do anything beyond changing the screen switching effects, it freezes up.

And what sucks is that it doesn't appear in the Force Quit menu. So I had to log out and log back in to get rid of it.

Meh, to all haters: u r funny! What difference does it make if Spaces is not 100% totally brand new never seen feature, or something that's been copied from somewhere or done differently somewhere else? What matters is how useful is Spaces going to be to the end user? I have a sneaking suspicion that Spaces will be way more polished than MSFT's powertoy, or some virtual desktop manager from linux or some hacked up solution from somewhere else. Yes, those other solutions exist, but I'm not using them because they are not as well polished up and thought out - implementation is often more important than the basic idea... that was the trouble with early Linux solutions - sure, you couid do X, Y or Z, but you had to do it in a really hard or roundabout or unintuitive and basically geeky way. Apple would take the same idea, and make it USEABLE. I'm not saying with everything (boo spotlight!), but often. That's what I'm counting on with Spaces.

The basic idea behind Spaces is valid - I don't care who invented it, but I do care that Apple finally implements it in a user-friendly way. Personally, I see a lot of use for it in my workflow. Often I'm multitasking on totally different things, and it would be great to have superfast ways of switching to collections of apps devoted to a specific task. I dig it. I'm sure it's been hacked together somewhere, but I bet Apple will make it actually useable.

I agree the VirtueDesktops is not as elegant as I'm sure Apple's implemention will be. I've been using the latest version of VirtueDesktops for a while now and it's been really stable. It does have the ability to constrain an app to a specific desktop (i absolutely LOVE that).

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It is pretty stable. But it's not very useful. The preferences are confusing and incomplete. The inspector doesn't work.

But the biggest beef I have with Virtue is that it feels like a hack. Despite the fact that it *is* a hack, the whole thing feel inconplete and un-Apple-y. That's why I'm looking forward to Spaces.

Yes, those other solutions exist, but I'm not using them because they are not as well polished up and thought out - implementation is often more important than the basic idea...

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Well put. Ideas are dime a dozen. You'll find that there are very few original ideas. Everyone 'borrows' from everyone else, and it doesn't matter if you're designing software, a car, or a house. It's about execution and the end-benefit to the user.

Apple is guilty of borrowing from existing software, but almost always, they improve on the original. Which can't always be said about other software makers. Look where Apple is taking Dashboard with webclips and dashcode. I'll withold final judgement until they work out the performance issues with Dashboard, but I'm pretty friggin siked about where Apple is taking it.

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